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I think I may have Factitious Disorder?

Asked by Misspegasister28 (2103points) November 17th, 2014

I think I have a minor case of it.
I tend to feign symptoms or exaggerate them in hope of going to the doctors or maybe even the emergency room. I purposely hurt myself to get attention- for example, the other day, I overdosed on my medicine (not enough to kill me), but it made me quite sick the next day (I couldn’t stand without feeling like I was going to vomit). I did it on purpose.
Sometimes I’ll purposely give myself bruises or cuts to see if people will notice. I don’t know why I do it. I know it’s bad. I know it’s wrong. But sometimes I just do it without even realizing it. There’s no clear gain out of it so I don’t even know why I do it.
It goes hand in hand with depression and anxiety (which I both have) so I think that may be why I have it, but it makes me feel like such a bad person to be doing this to myself just for other people’s pity. I want to go to the emergency room. I want to be hospitalized. When I leave the country I’m tempted not to take my malaria pills in hope of getting malaria so I have to go to the hospital.
It’s horrible, I feel horrible, I don’t know what to do but I can’t stop, it’s like a habit. And I’m afraid to tell people because I’m afraid they’ll think I’m just doing it for the fun of it (there are deep psychological issues involved), or I’m worried they’ll think I’m lying about my depression and anxiety (which I’m not, I usually do it for physical symptoms), or that I’m trying to make fun of other suffering people (of course not!). It’s really, really bad. I feel like such a psycho. I don’t even enjoy pain- it hurts! But I do it anyway! I don’t know why!
I don’t want to self diagnose myself but I’m scared to tell others that I think I have this. Most people with this disorder don’t believe they have a problem but I do. I’ve been doing this since grade school (in 6th grade I faked sick to get out of school multiple times) but it’s just now getting worse. Do you think I have it? What should I do about it? Thank you for your help!

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